Over 300 industrial units in Tehran Province have been covered by the provincial Department of Environment’s industrial pollution monitoring scheme in the current Iranian year (started March 21), as the DOE turns up the heat on polluting industries.

Over 300 industrial units in Tehran Province have been covered by the provincial Department of Environment’s industrial pollution monitoring scheme in the current Iranian year (started March 21), as the DOE turns up the heat on polluting industries.

Since the launch of the scheme last November, 3,350 industrial facilities have been monitored, Financialtribune reported.

“Over 900 units have either received warnings or had their permits suspended for exceeding pollution limits,” Nasser Mehrdadi, the head of Tehran Province’s DOE office, said.

“Fortunately, many have taken this seriously and made efforts to reduce their pollution.”

Environment officials have had enough of polluting industries ignoring regulations and are determined to crack down on violaters.

“They should not expect leniency from the department … We’re not going to appease them,” Saeed Motessaddi, a deputy at the central DOE office, said last month.

The provincial DOE also announced that it is planning to enhance the overnight monitoring of polluting industries in the Iranian capital.

It has been reported that to increase production capacity and reduce running costs, many industries turn off their filtration systems after work hours, thinking that the monitoring is either lax or nonexistent after daytime.

Massoumeh Ebtekar, the DOE chief, has therefore “stressed the importance of overnight monitoring of industries to ensure 24-hour compliance with environmental regulations”, Merhdadi said in April.

Home to 12 million people, Tehran is one of the most polluted cities in Iran whose problem mainly stems from the 3-5 million cars that ply its streets and contribute a whopping 70-80% of pollution to the city’s environmental woes.

By some estimates, nearly 30% of the country’s industrial units are located in and around Tehran, which play a part in worsening the metropolis’ pollution crisis.